Browse examples of B2B whitepapers used to educate buyers and support complex sales.
A whitepaper is a detailed, solution-oriented piece of long-form content designed to explore a specific topic, often one that’s complex or misunderstood. It’s especially common in B2B marketing, where buyers want more substance before making a decision.
Whitepapers aren’t about hype. They’re about helping potential customers understand their challenges, evaluate their options, and walk away with a clear next step. Done right, a whitepaper can shape how someone sees a problem—and make your solution the obvious choice.
You’ll see whitepapers most often in technical or regulated industries like healthcare, cybersecurity, and enterprise SaaS. In these spaces, buyers expect deeper insights and want to see your methodology, supporting data, and subject matter expertise laid out in a digestible way.
In B2B marketing, whitepapers are foundational. They’re flexible assets that can support nearly every part of your marketing strategy—from lead generation and SEO to sales enablement and customer onboarding.
Because whitepapers are in-depth, they appeal to decision-makers who need to understand the full context of a problem. They’re also perfect for reaching audiences doing self-serve research: someone in a startup leadership role, a nonprofit evaluating a CRM, or an IT leader scanning vendor options. These folks need more than a sales deck—they want substance.
Whitepapers can also be repurposed. A single asset can fuel blog posts, social graphics, infographics, case studies, or a webinar. You can even use the research to pitch a podcast interview or executive byline. And when you pair your whitepaper with Dock, you can embed it into a custom workspace alongside a proposal, landing page, and other assets that support the customer journey.
A marketing whitepaper is designed to attract and convert leads. It's usually built around one major pain point, backed by industry data, and capped off with a compelling call to action. While it may touch on your product, it’s rarely a hard sell.
Think of a marketing whitepaper as a bridge between awareness and evaluation. It gives your target audience something valuable, and in return, you earn their time, attention, and possibly even their contact information through gated content.
Smart content marketers also optimize marketing whitepapers for SEO, formatting them with a table of contents, well-labeled headers, and phrases aligned with what their audience is actually searching for. This way, the content drives value both in the moment and long-term via organic traffic.
Not all whitepapers are created equal. Each serves a different purpose depending on where the buyer is in the funnel and who you're talking to:
A great whitepaper delivers value fast and makes it easy for the reader to find what they need. Here’s what separates the good from the great:
Don’t underestimate the impact of whitepaper design. Even great content can get ignored if it looks dense or outdated. Some design tips:
Your whitepaper format should reflect your brand while prioritizing clarity. The goal is to guide the reader’s attention without overwhelming them.
Whitepapers work best when you’re trying to do one of the following:
If your buyer has questions like “How does this actually work?” or “Why is this worth the cost?”—a whitepaper is probably the right tool.
To get full value out of your whitepapers, your team has to know they exist—and when to use them. Some internal best practices:
Buyers aren’t really looking for a 20-page PDF in their inbox. Make the delivery experience count:
When shared in context, whitepapers feel like helpful tools—not homework.
Here’s how to know whether your whitepaper is actually working:
Once you have that insight, you can fine-tune your next whitepaper—whether that’s a visual redesign, a more focused topic, or a clearer CTA.